Rockville, Md. -- When GM Mikheil Kekelidze decided to accept a draw on his fifth and final game at the 51st Maryland Open over the weekend, it wasn’t because he was banking on a loss or draw by FM Shelby Getz, the only other competitor who could have possibly scored 4.5 points along with Kekelidze and thereby force him to split the top prize.

Rather, Kekelidze had a practical reason for not continuing his match against GM Sam Palatnik: Fatigue.

“I was very tired,” Kekelidze told Chess Life Online after he drew his last game by agreement on the 12th move, lamenting that the 4.5-hour bus ride he had taken from New York to compete in the tournament had taken a toll on him.

“I was playing against a grandmaster,” Kekelidze explained. “He was a half point down. I didn’t want to take the risk.

“Usually, I don’t like to make short draws, but the ride was very hard. And two games every day, it was much.”That decision enabled FM Getz to tie Kekelidze for first place after IM Oladapo Adu resigned to Getz upon realizing that he could not stop Getz from promoting a pawn in an end game preceded by some menacing threats that Adu made against Getz’s king on the back rank.

As a result, Kekelidze and Getz both split the $1,200 first place prize and the $600 second place prize, each taking home $900.

Although both players scored 4.5 points, only Getz gets the title of Maryland state champion because of a residency rule, a tournament official said.

The Maryland Open drew 187 competitors, smashing what organizers said was its previous attendance record of 172 last year.

The players came from several states, mostly Maryland and Virginia but some from as far away as Texas and Kentucky. The event fielded three GMs, three IMs, and one FM.

One of the biggest upsets came when Ian Schoch (2229) defeated GM Lawrence Kaufman, who attributed the loss to a “bluff” Schoch made when he offered a pawn that Kaufman says he should have taken but did not because it looked to risky.

The weekend event featured a total of $6,500 in prize money, a Sunday brunch, and boards and pieces for all players, plus clocks for those competing in the open.

Most competitors remarked that the tournament was well-organized, although a few squabbles broke out, keeping the TDs busy during different spells. And one young player raised eyebrows by starting two games with three rooks, including one instance that was witnessed firsthand by Chess Life Online.

The young player remarked that her third rook was merely substituting as a pawn because she could only find 7 pawns, despite the abundance of boards and sets about the place. Conveniently, she had placed the rook on h7 at the start.

“Just when you thought you’ve seen everything,” one player who almost fell victim to the three-rook player’s scheme said.

On a more positive note, the tournament winners both say they enjoy teaching.

Kekelidze, a native of the country of Georgia, is currently residing in Brooklyn. When he’s not playing chess at the historic Marshall Chess Club in New York, he teaches chess at an after-school program in Manhattan.

“I try to give my best for children,” Kekelidze said. “I know it’s very important to give some good, ah, what do you call it? Tips.”

His advice to his students?

“If you want to make progress, you have to work every day.”

Getz said he was recently tapped by officials at Johns Hopkins University to start a chess program there for talented kids.

“I said I’d be very interested in doing that,” Getz said, a mathematics instructor.

Getz said he uses computers to study “theoretical novelties” in chess. Asked to describe a theoretical novelty, Getz said they are “things that haven’t been seen before.”

Asked if any theoretical novelties occurred in his matches at the Maryland Open, Getz said there were several and offered this example:

Kekelidze recounted this game he planed against Alex Barnett entirely from memory, which he insists is not a big deal among GMs:

The event was organized by the Maryland Chess Association. Michael Regan, treasurer for the MCA and the TD of the event, said that one feature people really like about the Maryland Open is the texting of pairings---this enables players to bypass crowding around a sheet of paper posted on a bulletin board like in most tournaments.